Just under 3000 miles in 10 weeks, Phill Eaglen pays tribute to British Tour de France stage winners

Posted on 12/05/2014

At the age 63, Phill Eaglen has set himself the challenge of a lifetime: to honour the historical contribution made by British Tour de France stage winners by cycling to the locations of all the British stage wins between 1945 and 1999, whilst raising money for Compassion UK's HG1000 project, to provide water filters to people living in extreme poverty in 26 countries across the world.

With the Tour de France starting in Yorkshire this year, and the first stage finishing in Harrogate, Harrogate resident, Phill Eaglen, decided that this was the year to do something special. Starting on Sunday 18th May, Phill will embark on a 2900+ miles solo challenge to visit the 18 stage-win locations scattered around France. He has arranged the locations in a suitable anti-clockwise route starting at Wasquehal and ending at Versailles.

His final objective: To finish the ride on the Champs-Elysées among the Tour's cavalcade and procession on Sunday 27th July! (If anyone knows anyone who could help with gaining him permission to do this, please get in touch!)

Phill will be using ViewRanger to show him the way on his journey. He has plotted the route of his different stages on my.viewranger.com, using the route plotting web tools, and will upload them to his phone. He will follow the stages of his route on maps which he will have saved to his phone, so as not to use data abroad, and for areas of poor signal. To charge the phone while he's riding, he will use an E-Werk unit.

(Phill tells me the final 4 stages still need a bit of tweaking before Sunday)

Fittingly, Brian Robinson, the first ever British Tour de France stage winner was a Yorkshireman!

Phill's route also includes a ride to the Tommy Simpson memorial on Mont Ventoux. Tommy never managed a stage win but in 1962 was the first British rider to wear the yellow jersey and was World Professional Road Race champion in 1965, as well as BBC Sports Personality of the year.

Phill says: "I will be 63 years old when I start the ride, and it will push me way beyond the realms of my normal experience. I want to put the effort to very good use by raising money for HG1000, an ambitious project for people in the Harrogate District to change the lives of 1000 children living in extreme poverty and to buy 1000 water filters to give to families who don’t have access to clean water. I was also happy to help because it has minimal administration costs, meaning that I can be confident as much of the money as possible is going to the people who need it. Please, please dig deep, because your support will mean a lot when times are tough on the ride!"